'We knew the sauce was coming!': Kiwi mountain biker Sammie Maxwell on her breakout season

Sammie Maxwell is quickly becoming a star on the mountain biking world stage.

Already in her first season as an elite rider, she's leading the UCI Cross Country World Series and coming to terms with newfound fame.

"I was doing some interval training, called VO2 max and I was in my rest period. In mountain biking, we say 'breathing out of our eyeballs', and I was dying! But this guy biked past and goes, ‘Can I get a photo?’ I was like, my bike computer starts counting down. It's like three, two, one, go! And I just took off! I didn't take the photo!"

The 23-year-old have been hard to catch though. Since bursting onto the international scene, Maxwell has claimed four World Cup podiums, including her first World Cup win.

Many would describe her season so far as dominant, breakout. But in Maxwell's own words, it's like a a bottle of tomato sauce.

"You're shaking the ketchup bottle and there's sauce in there but nothing's coming out. But you just keep shaking it because you know something's gonna come out. Just a bit like that this season. We knew there was sauce coming and then it's just come at once!"

Maxwell said her rise hasn’t come purely from time on the bike.

One of the most significant shifts she’s made this season is expanding her support network. The Olympian has added a nutritionist and psychologist to her team – a deliberate move that’s had a major impact on her performance.

"I'm feeling more fuelled and that my fitness sessions are more covered, so I think that's made a big difference. And then that translated to early success, and I think that's been the key to success now because I'm so composed, so confident when I'm racing," she said.

"I keep in touch with my psychologist all the time, like at least once every two weeks."

Maxwell said she receives "lots of homework" from him, which she loves.

"It's pretty productive for me. It gives me something to do to keep holding myself accountable."

Some of the homework has involved cutting out photos, sayings and quotes that remind her of "my why, my recovery", which Maxwell has pinned to her preparation board.

"I would see that every morning and it would just kind of remind me why I'm doing this."

It’s part of her recovery from an eating disorder, something she continues to speak about openly in the hope of shifting perspectives within the sport.

"To come now to a place where I can physically win World Cups, it's strange because on the outside, I think I'm fine and I have this big battle where the eating disorder will try tell me 'you're fine, you've got this under control', and it's not always the case. I've had to be really careful to make sure after my recent success I haven't just buried my head in the sand again.

"You see athletes with eating disorders get short-term success and then five years down the line, their body’s broken. If I want to be sustainable long term, I still need to fully recover."

Maxwell said one of her concerns is being misunderstood, that young fans might believe success comes because of restriction.

"One of my biggest fears is that a kid will see me and think I win World Cups because I have an eating disorder and that's what you need to do when in reality, I win in spite of my eating disorder. I win because I'm mentally driven and I'm tough. And I have a really great support network around me to keep me in line."

Even now, as she leads the World Series standings, she’s not getting ahead of herself.

"The season's really long, we're finishing in like five months' time. It only takes two bad weekends for it to all change. But I think it's almost a make or break in terms of how I respond to the pressure.

"Whatever happens, I'm so happy. I’ve just been silently working behind the scenes, ticking away. We knew there was sauce coming and now it’s all coming at once."

Maxwell and her fellow New Zealand mountain bikers will be looking to build on recent unprecedented success when the UCI MTB World Series moves to the famed venue of Val di Sole in the mountains among the Dolomites in Trentino, northern Italy, this weekend.